The present invention relates to an ink jet type recording apparatus to be set such that an ink type in an ink cartridge first attached to the recording apparatus can be used by the recording apparatus. The present invention also relates to a method of setting ink type information in the apparatus, and an ink cartridge capable of providing the ink type information to the apparatus.
Since an ink jet type recording apparatus can comparatively lessen a noise during printing and can form a small dot at a high density, it is used for many printing operations including color printing. In general, such an ink jet type recording apparatus comprises an ink jet type recording head which is mounted on a carriage and is moved in the transverse direction of a recording paper, and paper feeding means for relatively moving the recording paper in a direction orthogonal to the direction of the movement of the recording head. The recording apparatus serves to discharge ink droplets from the recording head based on print data, thereby carrying out printing record on the recording paper.
A recording head capable of discharging each of ink colors, for example, black, yellow, cyan and magenta is mounted on a carriage to execute not only text printing using black ink but also full color printing by changing the discharge rate of each ink color.
In many recording apparatuses under the present circumstances, dye ink is used. In recent years, however, printing has been very diversified and pigment dispersion group ink (hereinafter referred to as pigment ink) tends to be used. In some cases, moreover, the same recording apparatus can be used by properly carrying out a method of controlling the apparatus. However, the dye ink and the pigment ink have different properties. Therefore, in the case in which they are mixed, the ink physical properties are changed so that the reliability of printing might be deteriorated. In the worst case, furthermore, the ink is caked or solidified by the mixture. Therefore, there is also a problem in that serious defects might be caused on the recording apparatus.
In the recording apparatus of this kind, it is necessary to avoid the alternate use of the dye ink and the pigment ink. Therefore, it is desirable that the recording apparatus should manage ink cartridges during ink cartridge exchange operation such that a cartridge for the dye ink is to be used in a recording apparatus first using the dye ink, and a cartridge for the pigment ink is to be used in a recording apparatus first using the pigment ink.